Learning to Twitter – Part 1

As you probably know by now, I hosted a multi-contributor advent calendar in December 2015. There are many things I learnt while playing hostess, and one of them was how to find my way around twitter. I joined twitter in September, just before my first guest appearance and after a blogger had asked me where I can be found on social media. In the world of blogging being on at least one time consuming social media platform seems to be a must.

So here are some of my twitter tips.

Link your account to tweet deck that way you can schedule your tweets, and save a lot of time. It is a service provided by twitter. I learnt this the hard way, meaning that I only signed up once the advent calendar had come to its end, it was a lot more work than it should have been. I now use it to schedule tweets of those long forgotten and unread posts too.

Share your content automatically to twitter and link your blog to your twitter, so that you get notified when your posts are shared. The truth be told, many people prefer sharing your stuff on twitter if your blog is linked to twitter. That way you can easily retweet things when you are mentioned.

When you read something and you enjoy it, why not share it on twitter. Is there a suitable hashtag you can add or two? If you find a good read through twitter, well then retweet that tweet. I always read everywhere that the power of twitter lies within the retweet. So go on retweet the tweets you like!

Use hashtags, I spend a long time trying to find good hashtags to use. But I will briefly talk about the two types that I have come across. There are the hashtags that indicate the type of content you are talking about, and there are hashtags that are used on specific days of the week.

If you are a blogger, and your post is about a certain topic, just try adding a hashtag before the topic.
Here are some that I use, used recently, or might use:
#travel #travelblogger
#bookreview
#Paris
#parenting
#writing
#Christmas
#ChristmasMusic
#ghoststory
#book
#writing
#shortstory
the limit really is your imagination, just ask yourself what is the topic, what are the topics of the link that I am sharing?

Then there are the hashtag parties that mostly take place on a certain day, of the week, that I have made use of:
#MondayBlogs – by Rachel Thompson, the rules are here
#TuesdayBookBlog – owned by Rosie Amber, you can find the rules here#TravelTuesday
#wwwblogs (wednesday women writer blogs)
#BeWoW (Be Wonderful on a Wednesday) with Ronovan Writes#ThrowBackThursday
#LinkYourLife (on Fridays) with Shareen Mansfield, the guidelines are here
#ArchiveDay (posts from the archives, on Saturdays) it belongs to Vicky Charles of Single Mother Ahoy, you can find the guidelines here.
#SundayBlogShare (this must be the favourite hashtag for bloggers) it’s by Suzie81 speaks, and has rules too.

Now there are many more hashtag events out there, these are just the ones that I have so far participated in.

Then there are other events which use hashtags, such as #weekendcoffeeshare or #blogbattle but they come with a certain post format and cannot be used for sharing everything.

Another thing I discovered in December was @FemaleBloggerRT (thanks to a post by Suzie81 speaks) if you include the handle in your tweet you are likely to be retweeted to a great amount of twitters. There are various retweeting accounts, and I have read and seen that you can ask someone with a huge following if they might retweet something for you. Just try it by including please retweet or please RT with the handle of said person. I have not tried that yet, but maybe one day.

That’s it for now. Happy twittering!

My post has been inspired by various twitter related posts, which have often underlined what to pay attention to. Sadly, as I read most of them before I was on twitter, I never kept the links as they would be great resources for everyone.

What are your favourite hashtags? How do you twitter? What advice do you have for others?

You are welcome, I have used it thus I thought I should include it. There are so many book bloggers out there who will probably be happy 🙂
I have updated my post and added the link you provided, thanks!

Nice article! Some good tips here. One issue, I do attach to WP at work, but not Twitter so I can’t Tweet posts I like when I’m at work.

And a new hashtag – #weeklysmile (It has been used 3 times on Twitter – twice in 2012 and once in 2013. I hope it will be used a lot in 2016 😉 )

I’ve been on Twitter for just under a year and, well, don’t have the best relationship with it 😉 The problem, of course, is time. I spend so much time blogging that I forget about Twitter. yes, the blog is attached and all, but that’s about it. occasionally I remember to thanks people for Tweeting a post (as you know 🙂 ) but usually forget that courtesy.

Do you have a “rules” post regarding #weeklysmile or is it more like #weekendcoffeeshare ? it’s for wednesdays right? I’d love to add it to my list, if you let me know where to.
Don’t worry about thanking me, it takes time away from tweeting posts that you might like…

“They’re more like guidelines than actual rules”. I’m going to put up a post later today with the guidelines, but they’re pretty simple and can be summed up in one phrase – don’t be hateful. Tomorrow I’ll put up the first one with a “Linky”. You can post whenever, I’m taking “Wednesday” out of the title.

I think that I might do a post some day soon about my favourite linkups that use hashtags where I will talk a bit more in detail about #weekendcoffeeshare #weeklysmile #blogbattle etc. but not right away.
I use the wp app on my phone a lot, but in order to tweet I have to open the article in safari and then tweet, it takes a bit of time but gives the blogger in question a view and a share (after all if the reader does not add to views this might be good for the stat nerds :))

There is a share feature on my phone app, but I don’t know if I’ve ever used it. I should when I’m using my work computer and want to tweet something – I can just open in on my phone and share. I have Android, so the app might be different for Apple.

I am learning the hard way as you did. And I am not best friends with Twitter. But I found that “advertising” my blog by tweets, I am published as a weekly feature in a newspaper from The Netherlands for people interested in the Dordogne! I found myself on LA newspaper as well. Therefore I am now careful and trying to say more clearly that my rambles are NOT all directly linked to a particular geographical area. But the first times were shocks… 🙂

I don’t think so. And I have no idea about who reads me! Of course it is the title of the blog that is attractive. We have lots of English speaking tourists and part-time dwellers or even dwellers in the Dordogne. Therefore newspapers look for something “local” written in English by a French person, without knowing who this person is, etc.

Great post, Solveig, lots of useful tips. I’ve started using hashtags recently, only a couple, so still learning. For Fridays, try #LinkYourLife by Shareen Masnfield. And what is tweet deck? I’d love to automate some of the tweets, so would love some pointers!

Thank you. Your comment made me update the tweet deck part. You can find it here https://tweetdeck.twitter.com
it actually is a service provided by twitter. You have to manually schedule everything but it is great for spacing out tweets or promoting a guest post over the course of the week…
I will have to look into that one. Does it have any specific rules?
I named this post part 1 as I am sure that with all the comments and a few more weeks of toying around with twitter I will have some more things to add.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2009, and even used to run training on it, yet I don’t use it much at all these days. I need to get back into it! As you say, it’s finding the time to take part properly. My main advice to newcomers would be to regard it as a conversation and not just a tool for promoting your own links. Talk to people even if they don’t answer back at first. You get back what you put in, eventually! Also, Hootsuite is an alternative to Tweetdeck. I like it better but it does much the same thing, so it’s just personal taste.

I was on twitter for a while in 2009 but then left as I saw no use for it, well I left Facebook at the same time.
I have started to discover it’s potential as a tool for easy communication. And I enjoy having a place where I can share the posts of others that I have enjoyed, as I don’t reblog…

I still use Facebook but find that jokes and memes seem to surface on it several days after I read them on Twitter! Twitter has a fast turnover – I’m alarmed at the proposal to raise the character limit from 140 to 10k which would utterly ruin it.

It’s a lot easier than it seems. I got the hang of it really quickly. For hashtags it helps looking at what the people you follow use, or if you use tweetdeck, it will even propose hashtags. You are welcome, I do hope that it will help you.

Thank you, Solveig! I got on Twitter a while ago, have ‘met’ a few interesting people though that, and my posts get automatically tweeted. But that’s as far as it goes. No idea about Tweetdeck. And I still don’t get how you add a handle in your tweet? And I never use hashtags. *sigh*

I just started using tweetdeck at the end of December, and it is a good tool to have handy. Well a handle is easy to add all you have to do is type @ followed by the twitter username you want to mention, tweet to etc. if for example you have something that you think I might like or should retweet then you can add @solveigjw in your tweet.

I know that hashtags are a thing on Twitter, but I’ve never warmed to them. I try to use them, but forget more often than not. Plus I’m so wordy to begin with that I need all 140 characters to express my thoughts! Still, you make a good point about using them…

Ah! The mysteries have be unveiled! I’ve been enlightened! 0.0 This is awesome *stalks all the hashtag rules* :p I hope to more appropriately use Twitter, especially since I’m in the middle of my guest series at the moment. Though, Tweetdeck isn’t compatible with my phone. So, I’ll have to set all the tweets up when I’m happy. So, happy Tweetdeck exists. I use it for #1LineWed tweets, which is great! ^.^ Love that hashtag. Great writing exposure and easy to find writers you like, too!

Another hashtag I did not add to the list… well there definitely is a reason why it’s called “part 1”, not as if part 2 is in the works or anything…
For hashtags, just try adding them here and there, just not too many at once 🙂 it’s a bit like tagging your posts really, you can use one of those tags too.

You are welcome. I am just sharing what I have learnt over the last few months, well what I have witnessed be done and what I have read here and there (mostly before I joined twitter so I never bookmarked the articles in question)

Great advice. I have no idea how to use twitter. Still getting used to Wordprees lol. But I am definitely planning to start up twitter this year, as I am putting out my first MS to publishers this year. Any advice for me on the fundamentals is good advice 🙂

Just use it, and see what the people you follow do. WordPress is mostly easy, just don’t tag too much, I did that in the beginning but then after some reading on blogs and the help pages I realised that I have to not over tag, now any post of mine will have at the most 12 tags and categories combined. They say less than 14 most of the time, but I try to limit myself to 12.
For twitter I read just this weekend that it’s smart to have a schedule that allows you to tweet at different times of the day so that your followers get the info once but not all the time. (ah I am being confusing here) So here is a link: http://www.vickycharles.com/how-to-create-a-twitter-sharing-schedule/
Thank you for your comment 🙂

Great thanks! I only use a few tags and only up to 2 categories more so that I can find my own posts easier. I am sure it helps readers as well. Tagging on twitter is more something I need to get used to

I have no idea when that one will come, I have to learn some other useful things first, but I figured that, I shall name this one part 1 as it is not the last post about twitter that will be published on my blog.

Solveig, this was very illuminating. although I’m on twitter and Facebook, I really don’t use them much. Between a weekly posting on my blog, marketing my self-published children’s book and writing a murder mystery, I feel time slipping by too fast and focus on the blog and writing. But this post has been very helpful in my understanding of twitter as a source to share my work. Thanks, Clare

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